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Latest Featured Reports | Monday, March 18, 2024
Corporations 'Taking a Bazooka' to NLRB, Hoping to Declare it 'Unconstitutional': 'BradCast' 3/18/24
Guest: Labor journo Steven Greenhouse; Also: Putin's 'election'; Trump can't find $450M...
Sunday 'Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya' Toons
FEATURING: Moses Mike...Trump II Terror...TikTok Truth...and more in our latest collection of the week's most secular toons!...
Schumer Steps Up; Trump Associates Paid Biden 'Bribe' Liar $600k: 'BradCast' 3/14/24
Also: TikTok foolishness; NY hush-money trial delay?; Navarro must go to jail; Trump owes $400k for failed 'Steele Dossier' suit in UK...
'Green News Report' 3/14/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
FL bans heat protections for workers; Methane leaks continues; Repubs' Project 2025 would ban Paris Climate Agreement; PLUS: CA snowpack is back, but too late for the salmon...
Previous GNRs: 3/12/24 - 3/7/24 - Archives...
After Accountability for Fraud, What's Next for the Corrupt NRA and Gun Safety Reforms?: 'BradCast' 3/13/24
Guest: Brady Center's Kelly Sampson; Also: Biden, Trump clinch; GA judge nixes 6 counts...
How to Media Better and Other Smart Ideas:
'BradCast' 3/12/24
Press quietly resets weeks of misreporting on Biden; Suggestions for NYT; Stephanopoulos v. Mace; Also: Buck quits; RNC 'bloodbath'; WI's MAGA Speaker Recall...
'Green News Report' 3/12/24
Biden touts climate jobs boom at SOTU; Feb. obliterated global temp and ocean heat records; PLUS: Great Barrier Reef hit with yet another 'mass bleaching event'...
Biden's Bold SOTU, Britt's SOTU Border Lies: 'BradCast' 3/11/24
Listeners ring in on that, Brad's hack of Daylight Saving Time and more...
The GOP's Exploitation of Laken Riley
CANNING: Suddenly they care about gun violence?...
Sunday 'Strongman' Toons
FEATURING: Sleepy Joe...Cognitive tests...The People's Court...and more in our latest collection of the week's most powerful toons!...
Echoes of Hitler's 'Final Solution' in Trump's Call to 'Finish the Problem' in Gaza
CANNING: 'In normal times, Hitler comparisons might seem over the top. These are not normal times'...
SCOTUS 14.3 Ruling a 'Sham' Says Group That First Raised Issue: 'BradCast' 3/7/24
Guest: Ron Fein of FSFP; Also: Sweden in NATO; Biden aid to Gaza; 'No Labels'; More...
'Green News Report' 3/7/24
2024 nominees set, climate stakes couldn't be higher; Broken utility pole caused TX fires?; Coastal U.S. cities sinking; PLUS: N. Atlantic keeps breaking heat records...
BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
Brad's Upcoming Appearances
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Media Appearance Archives...
'Special Coverage' Archives
GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Repub Sec. of State Gessler ignores expanding GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, rants about evidence-free 'Dem Voter Fraud' at Tea Party event...

CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...

Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
The GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal reveals insidious nationwide registration scheme to keep Obama supporters from even registering to vote...

CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
Scandal spreads to 11 FL counties, other states; RNC, Romney try to contain damage, split from GOP operative...

RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...

EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...

GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


Guest: WI's John Nichols; Also: McConnell 'nukes' Senate rules again; House to subpoena 'Mueller Report', request Trump tax returns from IRS...
By Brad Friedman on 4/3/2019 6:52pm PT  

There were a number of important elections held around the country on Tuesday, so on today's BradCast, we've got some of the reported results from the key races, including both good and bad news for Democrats and progressives. Oh, and some stuff happened in D.C. today as well. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

We start with the good news out of Chicago, where former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot will become the Windy City's first black female Mayor, as well as the city's first openly gay chief executive. Lightfoot, who has never held elective office, ran as a progressive reformer to clean up Chicago's notorious old-school, insider politics after Democratic Mayor Rahm Emmanuel chose not to seek a third term. She is said to have easily bested Toni Preckwinkle, another African-American woman and a longtime elected official. by a nearly 50-point margin in Tuesday's final runoff contest.

There was still more good news for Democrats in the key swing-state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, where Democratic Navy vet and former Dept. of Veterans Affairs official Pam Iovino is said to have defeated Republican D. Raja in a special election for a state Senate seat representing a suburban district outside of Pittsburgh. Republicans have held that seat for most of the past half-century, and the district (which uses 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems) reportedly went to Donald Trump by 6 points in 2016, when he took the state's 20 electoral votes for the first time since 1988.

Iovino's 4-point victory over Raja is being regarded as a potential bellwether for next year's Presidential contest when Democrats will need to win back Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin --- all of which went to Trump in 2016 before electing Democratic Governors during statewide elections in 2018 --- if they hope to take back the White House.

While there was good news for Dems in Pennsylvania, the news out of Wisconsin on Tuesday was decidedly less good...at least as of this hour. Progressive-aligned state Supreme Court candidate Judge Lisa Neubauer had been widely expected to win the seat of a retiring progressive-aligned state Justice, but appears to have fallen just short against GOP-aligned Judge Brian Hagedorn, according to unofficial results.

Hagedorn, who has likened homosexuality to bestiality, derided Planned Parenthood as a "wicked organization" and called the NAACP a "disgrace to America", declared victory in the early Wednesday morning hours after computer tallies gave him a lead of just under 6,000 votes out of just over 1.2 million cast across the state. Neubauer's campaign announced the race was "too close to call" and "almost assuredly headed to a recount", stating that "Wisconsinites deserve to know we have had a fair election and that every vote is counted".

With the margin less than 1% (it is currently one-half of 1%), she will be entitled to request --- and pay for --- such a "recount". State law, however, currently leaves it up to local jurisdictions to decide whether they wish to tally the state's mostly hand-marked paper ballots manually or simply run them through the same computer scanners that tallied them (correctly or incorrectly, who knows?) on Election Night.

Tuesday's state Supreme Court contest in the Badger State was particularly important for Democrats who, even if they had won, would have retained a 4 to 3 minority on the state's high court. But, with a conservative-aligned Justice retiring next year and the replacement election to be held on the same day as the state's 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary, they had hoped to finally flip the court to a more Dem-friendly 4 to 3 majority next year for the first time in years. That majority would be particularly important following the 2020 census and the inevitable subsequent court battles over redistricting in one of the most extremely GOP-partisan gerrymandered states in the country, not to mention hopes for rolling back a host of rightwing initiatives enacted under Republican Gov. Scott Walker now that voters sent him packing last November.

We're joined today by Wisconsin's own JOHN NICHOLS, Washington Correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times, to help us make sense of Tuesday's stunning reported results that appear to have taken both Democrats and Republicans alike off guard.

How and why did it happen, given Neubauer's huge fund-raising advantage over the toxic, Koch-supported former Walker protege who many Republicans chose to stay away from? Did a last minute infusion of out-of-state Republican cash make the difference? While turnout increased for both parties compared to the state's last Supreme Court election in 2018 (when the Dem-aligned candidate won by a full 12 points!), why did turnout appear to increase more for the GOP this year? And what happened that dampened turnout in Milwaukee?

Does a potential "recount" have any chance of reversing the currently reported results? And what should all of this --- an objectionably flawed rightwing candidate seen as having little chance of winning in Wisconsin, before he then goes on to narrowly win the state --- tell Democrats as they head into the crucial 2020 Presidential election looking to flip WI back into the D column? We discuss all of that and much more with the ever-wise Nichols today, who offers this "number one lesson" to progressives: "Do not assume Donald Trump is doomed."

Finally, there was also a lot of stuff that happened in Congress today for a change as well: The House Judiciary Committee voted to approve subpoenas for the Department of Justice to require Trump's Attorney General William Barr to turn over the full, unredacted Mueller Report, including its exhibits and underlying evidence; In the Senate, GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unilaterally invoked the so-called "nuclear option" to change Senate rules, after failing to do so via regular Senate votes, in order to reduce the time needed to install Trump appointees to executive agencies and lifetime positions on the federal bench. The new rule will now require just 2 hours of debate, rather than 30, before holding a vote on such appointees; And, late in the day, the Democratic U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal sent a letter to the IRS formally requesting the past 6 years of Donald Trump's tax returns as well as those for eight of his business entities. The House actions are certain to face challenges from the White House and likely end up being decided in court...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Guest: Howie Klein of 'Down With Tyranny!'; Also: Kushner loses his clearance and more GOP sex/hypocrisy scandals for 2018 candidates...
By Brad Friedman on 2/27/2018 6:08pm PT  

On today's BradCast: Democrats appear confident that they are heading toward a "Blue Wave" election in the 2018 mid-terms. Then again, they were also confident they'd soundly defeat Donald Trump for the Presidency in 2016. And the progressive/establishment rift that developed during the party's 2016 primary has, apparently, not gone away. [Audio link for show follows below.]

But first up today, the President's son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner has reportedly lost his Top Secret/SCI-level security clearance, along with a bunch of other White House staffers, after failing to receive a permanent security clearance in the more-than-a-year since he's been serving.

Next, with one disturbing sex (and hypocrisy) scandal after another plaguing Republican candidates for office (as well as the President of the United States), we add several more such scandals to the list today. Among them, a GOP U.S. House candidate in Pennsylvania whose husband says she threatened to kill him in a drunken rage. That, after the woman was revealed to have had an affair with married GOP Congressman Tim Murphy in a neighboring PA district. After text messages revealed he advised her to get an abortion, he eventually resigned from the House last year.

Then there's the Republican candidate for Illinois' state Legislature who is said to have asked the party's leading state Attorney General candidate recently whether she was a "lesbo", before repeatedly using the n-word in front of the woman who happens to be a Harvard Law grad and former Miss America, as well as an African-American.

And, let's not forget the minister in Arizona running in the GOP primary today for the Special Election to take the disgraced GOP Rep. Trent Franks' vacated seat. After the far right Franks resigned from Congress last year following his own sexual misconduct allegations, former AZ State Senator and family values minister Steve Montenegro led the pack of some 18 GOPers vying for the nomination in the very right-wing Congressional district west of Phoenix --- at least until salacious text messages with a legislative staffer were surfaced just days ago.

So, yes, the Republicans have a lot of problems with their candidates of late, but Democrats are having a lot of problems with each other. The turmoil between the party's aging conservative establishment wing and its growing progressive wing have now begun to rear its ugly head again, after the intraparty rift that grew out of the 2016 Presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Late last week the conservative Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) unleashed a remarkable attack against Laura Moser, one of the more progressive Democratic candidates, among eight, vying for the party's nomination in next Tuesday's U.S. House primary contest in the Texas' 7th Congressional District near Houston. And, over the weekend, the delegates at the annual California Democratic Party convention failed to endorse 4-term U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein in her reelection bid, where she is being challenged by progressive state Senate leader Kevin de León. De León received 54% of the delegate votes to Feinstein's 37%. Neither reached the 60% required for an official state party endorsement.

We're joined today to discuss all of this from the Democratic side --- as the primary season finally gets officially underway --- by progressive advocate and Congressional elections expert HOWIE KLEIN, creator of the Down With Tyranny! blog and co-founder of the BlueAmericaPAC, which supports progressive candidates with small personal donations.

Klein (whose BlueAmericaPAC supports a different progressive in the race, Dr. Jason Westin) explains the DCCC's stunning attack on Moser in Texas late last week, while warning that there are many more such attacks to come against progressive candidates this year by the conservative DCCC. "They always, 100% of the time, support conservatives from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party," he charges. "That's what they do. They always try to undercut progressives."

"They're not more likely to win. The only time they can win is in a wave election," Klein argues, while responding to the DCCC's defense that they are only favoring candidates more likely to defeat Republicans this November. "The problem with these DCCC candidates is that they can't hold the seats. They get defeated in the next midterm. And that happens over and over and over again, and the DCCC can't understand that."

Klein also speaks to what he sees as both the reason for and solution to the DCCC's right-wing bent --- (for which he blames Democratic Congressional leader Nancy Pelosi who "used to be a progressive") --- and whether bitterly divided Democratic voters will find a way to come together this year once the primaries are over, in order to retake majorities in one or both houses of Congress.

He describes the current rift as an in "important ideological fight," and claims, "It's not a split between Bernie people and Hillary people in any way. It's an ideological battle of people who believe in what Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt believed in, as opposed to people who are conservative Democrats who are frightened and afraid of innovation."

Speaking of which, Klein then offers his thoughts on why California's progressive Democrats are turning on the conservative Feinstein this year and how that may effect the 84-year old Senator's hopes of winning a 5th term in November. Related to that point, we also discuss the unpredictable "top two" primary system now used in California, where candidates from all parties run at the same time against each other, before the top two vote-getters --- from either the same or different parties --- then go on to compete head-to-head in November's general election...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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GUEST: Independent journalist, FOIA activist Brandon Smith...
By Brad Friedman on 12/1/2015 4:34pm PT  

On today's BradCast, Desi Doyen and I are finally back from a week of maddening illness over the holiday! My enormous thanks to Nicole Sander of RadioOrNot.com for her generously quick-footed and quick-witted guest-hosting in our absence!

First up today is a quick review of what we can (or can't) look forward to over the next two weeks in Paris, where the largest gathering of world leaders in history is now underway in hopes of carving out a "final" agreement to curb the global emissions that cause deadly climate change. We will have much more on the COP21 conference as it unfolds over the next two weeks.

Then it's onto the rightwing extremism --- from the Black Lives Matter protesters shot in Minneapolis to the attack at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs --- that took place over the past week. As we note, it wasn't ISIS or Syrian refugees threatening our nation last week. Rather, as made clear once again, "the call is coming from inside the house."

Finally, we are joined for the interview by independent journalist Brandon Smith of the blog Muckrakery. It was Smith's persistent work and FOIA requests and lawsuit (along with the efforts of independent activists and attorneys) that eventually led to the release last week of the Chicago PD dash-cam video showing the outrageous killing of 17-year old Laquan McDonald by Officer Jason Van Dyke who has now been charged with first-degree murder.

"The Freedom of Information Act," Smith explains, "can be used by anyone. So, if you're reading a news story and something sounds fishy to you, you can ask for any document or piece of information. It's your government. It's your responsibility, and mine too, to hold them accountable for what they do with their positions of power."

We discuss why it took more than a year for the Chicago Police to release the tape during its cover up of an apparent murder, whether Mayor Rahm Emanuel has responded sufficiently, and what we still do not know about the killing. (For example: What happened to the audio on that video tape?; What about the surveillance video allegedly deleted by cops at the Burger King?; Why didn't the corporate media file suit to get at the video themselves?; And what of all of those other officers at the scene who failed to take action, or lied about it, after witnessing Van Dyke pump 16 bullets into McDonald --- the first two while he was walking away from them, the other 14 while he was shot, on the ground, and a threat to nobody?)

"I'm just trying to report the story of police brutality in Chicago," Smith tells me while describing how much remains unknown and what he plans to FOIA next. "We want to know who knew what about the case, and how long they kept it hidden, and kept that story out there that Laquan was acting erratically and threatening officers. Not only that, but keeping the video secret and fighting the release of the video which would tell people this was a murder, according to the prosecutors."

All of that and more today on what is clearly just the tip of the very bad and racially-based policing in the Windy City and beyond...

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...

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While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!
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City official dismisses reports as 'least effective conspiracy in history'...
By Brad Friedman on 4/7/2015 7:08pm PT  

At In These Times, author and journalist Rick Perlstein covers reports from some Chicago voters claiming that they received paper ballots today that were pre-marked for Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) in his runoff election against the more progressive Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia (D):

Around 10:30 this morning, Sam Dreessen, a 26-year-old unemployed DePaul University graduate (and former In These Times intern) who's been voting in Chicago since 2006, walked into his polling place at Kozminski Community Academy on 54th and Drexel, a mostly black neighborhood in the city's 5th Ward. He approached the election judge at the table and, like thousands of Chicagoans on this mayoral election day, received a paper ballot and a felt-tip pen. But, he says, one of the two blanks-the one you fill in to vote for Mayor Rahm Emanuel-was already filled in. Dreessen, a volunteer for Emanuel's opponent, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, smelled a rat.

"I just said to one of them, the one who gave me the ballot, 'This has already been filled out. I want one that's blank.' And he acted surprised. He said, 'I don't know how that happened.' And he even said there had been other ballots with similar problems.' He gave me one that was blank, and I told him more than once that they should look at all the ballots, the ones that hadn't been handed out yet, to see if this happened."

Dreessen says he was too shocked to even take a picture. "And I thought, 'I don't know, this must be happening to other people.' It just seemed to be so crude."

Perlstein details a few other similar reported incidents of pre-marked ballots from around the city in the election which the local CBS affiliate is now calling for Emanuel. The Chicago Board of Elections website currently shows Emanuel leading Garcia 56% to 44% with over 79% of precincts reporting at this moment.

The website DNAInfo, however, dismisses the reports as "Facebook rumors", bluntly describing them as "false", based largely on a response from a Board of Elections official...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




ALSO: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel also chooses 'law' over Constitution, 'approves' arrest of hundreds of peaceful Occupiers...
By Brad Friedman on 10/24/2011 1:36pm PT  

Now this is more like it. As described by RAW STORY...

Occupy Albany protesters in New York’s capital city received an unexpected ally over the week: The state and local authorities.

According to the Albany Times Union, New York state troopers and Albany police did not adhere to a curfew crackdown on protesters urged by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and Albany mayor Gerald Jennings.

Mass arrests seemed to be in the cards once Jennings directed officers to enforce the curfew on roughly 700 protesters occupying the city owned park.
...
With protesters acting peacefully, local and state police agreed that low level arrests could cause a riot, so they decided instead to defy Cuomo and Jennings.

What part of the Constitutional First Amendment "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," do so many of the other cops across the nation not yet understand?

* * *

By the way, with Cuomo's attempted crackdown and Obama's former Chief of Staff, now Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel's approval of the arrests of 175 peaceful Occupiers in Chicago over the weekend, can we stop with the "Occupiers are just fronts for Democrats!" bullshit yet?

As registered nurses --- a number of whom were held in jail for some 23 hours after being arrested Saturday night, early Sunday morning while offering medical services to demonstrators in Grant Park --- protested the arrests outside Emanuel's office this morning, he was quoted by the Chicago Trib as saying: "I have to enforce the law as well as respect peoples’ 1st Amendment rights."

And when those two things come in to conflict, which one do you suppose Emanuel decided took precedence over the other?

* * *

Also...not from Albany, though somewhat related to the above. From from New York City, via ThinkProgress, a couple of weeks ago...




The Windy City relies on 100% unverifiable e-voting systems, tied to Hugo Chavez, with a track-record of infamous failure
Just ask Oprah!...
By Brad Friedman on 1/26/2011 6:05am PT  

[Update 1/27/11: IL's Supreme Court has determined Emanuel meets the residency requirements to run for Mayor in Chicago, overturning the lower court's ruling referenced below. Not that any of that makes any difference in regard to the details about Chicago's voting system as offered in the following article. So please read on.]

Perhaps you've been keeping up with the kerfuffle over the past day or two over former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's bid to be on Chicago's ballot in the upcoming February mayoral race there. On Monday, a court determined his residency status was not sufficient and ordered him removed from the ballot, while on Tuesday the court of appeals has temporarily stayed that order, leaving him on the ballot for now, after agreeing to hear his appeal.

But in modern-day Chicago, "appearing on the ballot" is not quite as straightforward as one might think, given the 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems now forced on hundreds of thousands of voters in the Windy City.

Over the years, we've covered specific failures of the very same Sequoia e-voting systems that are used in Chicago and elsewhere across the country, as well as the remarkable duplicity of the company's top officials. So it seems like this would be a good moment to remind folks of the most disturbing Sequoia/Chicago related incidents.

One involves Oprah's "lost" vote on the Sequoia touch-screen systems used there in the 2008 Presidential general election, the other involves the CEO of Sequoia Voting Systems simply lying to Chicago officials about his company's direct business partnership with a Venezuelan e-voting firm tied to Hugo Chavez, and the fact that the Venezuelan firm, Smartmatic, still owns the intellectual property (IP) rights to the e-voting systems used by Chicago voters --- even as the new owners of Sequoia continue to lie about it...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 10/2/2010 1:12pm PT  

Not to say "we told ya so," but we did tell ya so, the day after Obama's election in 2008...

Anyway, now he's gone. Perhaps this will be the change we can believe in. Though we are not holding our breath.




A Solution to the 'Progressive dilemma' in U.S. Electoral Politics...
By Ernest A. Canning on 12/20/2009 5:01pm PT  

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

There have been a few occasions during my 62 years when I heard something profound that stuck with me.

The year was 1969. I was attending a freshman college history class, shortly after returning from Vietnam, when my professor said:

If the American Right can be criticized for its insensitivity to the plight of the common man, the American Left can always be criticized for its inability to count.

His words came back to me as Brad Friedman and I simultaneously made guest appearances on Live from the Left Coast with Angie Coiro.

While the topic was Afghanistan, a concern emerged over the splintering of the Left as a product of what Coiro described as strident "rhetoric," such as the suggestion that President Obama was a "sell-out" or the announcement by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) that he intended to introduce a privileged resolution to stop the "criminal enterprise" in Afghanistan. The concern was the potential for that "rhetoric" to adversely impact the Democratic Party in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Unfortunately, in part due to technical difficulties they had on the show that night, I failed to adequately articulate my concerns, which go to the core of the Progressive dilemma in U.S. electoral politics....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




The Baucus Bill 'milestone' obscures the only real solution to the ills of our current health care system...
By Ernest A. Canning on 10/16/2009 10:34am PT  

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

As recounted in a front-page article in The New York Times, on the strength of a single "yes" from a member of the Party of No, President Barack Obama described the 14 to 9 Senate Finance Committee vote in favor of the Baucus health care bill as "a critical milestone," adding, "We are now closer than ever to passing health care reform."

With all due respect, Mr. President, it is nothing of the sort. To the contrary, the Senate Finance Committee has produced nothing less than a legislative obscenity.

After nearly a year of back room deals and unending propaganda, which has included extensive corporate media coverage of insurance industry sponsored, wing-nut assaults on town halls, fabricated issues about "death panels," the exclusion of single-payer advocates from the White House and the Senate Finance Committee, and a deafening corporate media silence about the widespread public support* for a single-payer (Medicare for All) system, the time has come to pierce through the confusion by asking and answering a few simple questions...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 11/5/2008 1:56pm PT  

That's not change we can believe in, my friends...



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About Brad Friedman...
Brad is an independent investigative
journalist, blogger, broadcaster,
VelvetRevolution.us co-founder,
expert on issues of election integrity,
and a Commonweal Institute Fellow.

Brad has contributed chapters to these books...


...And is featured in these documentary films...

Additional Stuff...
Brad Friedman/The BRAD BLOG Named...
Buzz Flash's 'Wings of Justice' Honoree
Project Censored 2010 Award Recipient
The 2008 Weblog Awards



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